He's only 34 too. Next manager will have him back for Russia 2018.
Not adequately replacing LD has been one of the biggest shortcomings of this team and still is.
Only half joking. The US lacks a Donovan type player at the moment. Closest thing they got is Zardes, but he's all huff and puff and no real end result. Donovan with Dempsey off him, or a big striker with Donovan off him is what the US needs currently. Not saying it needs the actual Donovan, but a player like him that's speedy, agile and know how to finish off the scraps given to them. Klinsmann has the US playing a style of football that they don't have players suited for, it's idiotic. As much as you guys may hate it, the US is a workhorse team given their player pool at the moment. They need to play like a workhorse team, not a wannabe tiki-taka bullshit wankfest team that keeps not playing its best players in their normal formations.
Klinsmann is a German Pardew tbh. US have all the same issues as Norway currently does with continuing with a style of play the players are not suited for whatsoever just because their managers are egocentrical wankers.
I agree completely. This is the deepest player pool we've ever had and arguably the strongest team since the 2002 WC. There's no excuse for not playing well. At the end of the day, it's about holding Klinsmann to his own standard. He came in and said, "This is what our identity is going to be. This is how we're going to play." U.S. fans don't demand free-flowing 4-3-3 tiki-taka: we want a competitive team that's defensively solid and keeps opponents honest. Our strengths as a team remain athleticism, speed, and strength...why not utilize them ? We've always been a counter-attacking team and there's nothing wrong with that. Costa Rica made the WC QFs playing good football as a defensively-strong, counter-attacking team. Italy is the godfather of that kind of football. Klinsmann would have us believe that style of football is beneath us.
And what have we gotten from him? Countless line-up changes, a revolving door at CB, leaked goals, and the most dangerous opportunities coming off the counter-attack as always, not from a high-backline, high-possession side breaking teams down. And that last bit is fine, but Klinsmann has the audacity to assume he's far superior to his predecessors as a tactician and coach and he's never fucking backed it up.
That all being said, he deserves a fraction of credit for getting a lot of things correct against Colombia. Cameron-Brooks is our strongest CB pairing (and minus Cameron getting picked on the corner, both played very well), Yedlin at RB instead of RW, Bradley finally at #6. U.S. fans have been screaming at him to make these changes for years and he's finally come around, whether by choice or just the pure luck of landing on them in yet another squad shuffle.
Fab Johnson is being wasted at LB, but he played well at fullback at the World Cup (on the right side no less) and I see the logic behind it. With this current squad, I'd consider bringing in Castillo at LB and pushing Johnson up to LW, where he belongs. Go for broke on that left side. Otherwise, I'm not sure why Lichaj has been completely iced out, despite playing LB week-in and week-out for Forest. Ream as well is capable of playing there and I'd like to see Villafaña brought in too, starting LB for Santos Laguna in LigaMX.
Dempsey is being isolated at striker and dropping way too deep to pick the ball up. He remains our most important attacking player and we need him on the ball a hell of a lot more. So you have to consider giving him a strike partner, which is either Wood or Zardes. Those two are CFs, not wingers (though Zardes can play as a 4-3-3 wide forward decently), so they're being wasted out wide in the current set-up as well.
Costa Rica is not nearly as good as they were at the World Cup and played like crap yesterday. Paraguay is a decent team on their day and they have some dangerous players. But we just beat Ecuador, a better team, and crushed Bolivia. Anything less than 4 points, and it really should be 6, from these two matches has to be seen as a complete failure for this team and it lands on Klinsmann.
I'm a massive fanboy, but Bob Bradley would have done wonders with this US player pool. Looking at how he made average workhorses at Stabæk play like they were champions of the world, defensively solid and well organised counter attacking football. It's exactly the way the US should be playing with its current players.
